Funky Town Part I

I am ILL.  I posted a lengthy blog two days ago and Blogger deleted it when I tried to save it.  UGH!!!!

Instead of rewriting the blog immediately, I started visiting my some of my favorite other blogs and realized 2 things:

1.  Their blogs are really popular.

2.  Their blog posts are really short.  (compared to mine)

So, realizing fully that our blog is not interesting enough to become 'popular', but also realizing that our sweet family members do take the time to read it, I'll try to keep things short and sweet. 

And maybe a little more frequent. 

So, moving on...

Today's topic is....

Bluffton is the name of the town we live in.  It's in South Carolina.  It's small.  And outside of an occasional "Man I wish we had a Bojangles" comment here or there, we feel that Bluffton really offers so much for our little family.  For some reason (we know the reason, it's just too long to tell), our boys refer to the downtown area of Bluffton as "Funky Town".  I understand you may not care to learn about Bluffton, but for those who read this blog and want to know what we enjoy doing, it would be a crime to leave Funky Town off of the list.  

Downtown Bluffton is about 3 minutes from our house.  I don't know where it technically begins or ends, but the good stuff is on about 2 or 3 streets.  There are several stores: gift shops, art galleries, restaurants, thrift stores, a clothing store, children's book stores, the most beautiful little church you've ever seen that sits on the May River and other a few other random places.  We usually park at John's office and walk the length of Calhoun Street, browsing, buying and hopefully not stealing. (another story for another blog)

I'll start with one store and see how it goes...

First up:

SPROUTS

Sprouts falls into the gift store category.  It's near and dear to my heart because the owner, Dana, (yes, it's like Cheers around here...everybody knows your name) took a chance on me and has some of my artwork in there!  The Bluffton sign above is one of several different things she has in there.  Thanks, Dana!  Sprouts carries awesome jewelry, housewares and enough fun children's items to keep the boys busy while I spend more money than what I just made from my sold art piece.

Here's a peek inside:

Another view.  See that window there in the center?  Just on the other side of it....

was this little boy.  I found him one day and took him home with me.

Finley+Tire Swing = Happy Finley

Put this in your memory bank.  If you know Finn, then you're aware that he has earned his nickname as 'Grumpy Gus'.  If you ever have to babysit Finley, it would be in your best interest to have a tire swing near by.  In fact, buy one.  Or buy two in case the first one goes out.  Don't worry about Finn.  We know it's a phase of three year old crankies.  But until this blessed phase ends, we're living in this jungle gym outside of Sprouts.

And this is just a cool old truck that stays parked outside of Sprouts on occasion.  It's very near the location where the New Year's Eve crab dropping was.  No, not a large pile of celebratory crab dung, but think Times Square ball drop minus the thousands of people, huge Diddy billboards, and police officers.  And instead of the ball, picture a much smaller crab cut out dropping from a 20 foot metal pole.  

And that's Funky Town!

More on Funky Town later. 

Post Christmas. As Promised.

It snowed on December 26th in Bluffton.  That made for 2 snow falls in 2010.  For Bluffton, that's a record, right?  It was such a pretty snow.  Didn't stick to the ground, but it will stick in our minds as a lovely Christmas memory.  

Mimi and Poppy can be thanked for bringing the white stuff.  They came down from NC on the 26th and spent a few days with us.  This is my Mom.  Isn't she love-ly?  Isn't she won-der-ful? 

This is my Dad.  Jack's #1 buddy.

Scout came home for Christmas.  If you didn't hear, we had to "give him away" because a certain glasses wearin' youngster in our home was rough housing a little too much with the dog.  Enough was enough, so we 'gave him away.'  We took last pictures and everything.  The little boy who happened to pull Scout's ears one too many times was SO upset.  But it was needed.  Scout took a 3 day hiatus with his second Mommy, Jennie.  He was probably sad to come back.  We surprised the ex-dog abusing child in bed a few nights before Christmas, telling him that the family we gave Scout to couldn't keep him.  When he finally realized the awesomeness of what was happening, he said, "I think I have imagination."  In 5 year old lingo that meant he thought he was dreaming.

To give Scout a proper homecoming, we gave him a stuffed eagle.  Very squeaky.  Very patriotic. 

Very tasty.

The boys had a lot of fun with their gifts, and for the most part, showed a decent amount of gratitude.  One of their favorite gifts was the game Operation.  This was a flashback moment for me until the new Operation started making all sorts of sounds that my childhood Operation game did not. 

The new Operation even has a sound for passing gas.  Like we need any more of that in our house.

On New Year's Eve, some of John's childhood buddies came over for dinner.  We ate, laughed and celebrated David's new job opportunity in NC!  So glad to have them on the east coast again!

While the adults were talking, the cousins were playing.  Who knew buckets could be so fun:

After all the new presents, these are the hit.

We had to say bye to Mr. Serious.

It was a sad day.

That's all for 2010!

Christmas 2010

2010 is over.  Whoa.  

Here's the Ussery Jr. Christmas recap:

We got a new camera.  This was the first picture I took with it.  Clearly, Jack was so confused by the different black box I was holding that he couldn't remember how to smile.  

Finley learned from his brother's mistake...

Ten minutes after the camera landed on our doorstep, we headed to Harbor Town to listen to Greg Russell (Gweg Wussell for those of you who know him) sing 'neath the big oak tree.  I failed to learn how to use the new camera in the 20 minute drive there.  Partly because I'm a victim of car sickness, and partly because the manual was in Spanish.

Regardless, this turned out to be a cool picture.

After the sing-a-long, the cousins played around in the yard and hugged for about 0.5 seconds.  Thanks to my new super fast camera, I was able to catch it on film.  Our lives are so much better now.

Finley hates candy canes.  Can't you tell?

Thankfully, we got to spend a good amount of time with these guys...We're excited for Smith Baby #2 to make his or her arrival in early Spring.  

This was a fun night.  We were in the Christmas spirit.  I hope to go again for 2011.  Hopefully this year we won't lose Jack for 5 minutes when he bolts towards Santa at the end of the show.  

On Christmas Eve, we did the 2nd annual Wrapping of the Door.  As much as I would like to claim this as my idea, I can't.  My friend, Jessi, clued me in on the awesomeness that is Wrapping of the Door.  Basically, it goes like this:  

Wrap the Door frame with wrapping paper....

...and on Christmas morning when you say it's "go" time, they bust through.

Finley got a Big Wheel.  Sadly it's too big of a Big Wheel, and he'll have to do some growing before he can ride it.  Oops.

Jack got an Iron Man head.  It talks and says things about checking your systems and having your repulsors ready.

And Mama got a shot gun. 

Actually, John's parents got the Ussery girls a joint gift this year because we had so much fun this past summer shooting skeet together.

This was just a very natural thing, so I took a picture of it...

**John got a Keurig coffee maker.  There's no picture of it here because that would require him to let it out of his loving embrace long enough to photograph it.  Seriously, it is the coolest thing.

Austin was receiving his baby Iron Man mission instructions from the giant Iron Man Head...

This is what Austin does when you say "What's your crazy face?"  He's so smart.  

On Christmas evening, we went to Trevor's parent's home for the annual gathering of neighbors and other random families.  There's always a one point ping pong tournament.  Everyone plays.  This year Jack made the bracket, which was the best Christmas gift he received.  

However, it was the worst news ever for Finn, because he was too small.  We tried to remedy the situation by letting him "play" with me, but that did not suffice.

The next day, all was forgotten. :)

So, Christmas was a lot of fun.  Our Christmas Eve service at LCC was the best I've ever been to.  The boys seemed to understand more this year about what Christmas really is.  One evening I let Jack watch a show that told the Christmas story on a child's level.  After the show, I asked him to retell me what he had learned.  Here was part of his reply:

"And then an angel showed up to Mary in her sleep and he said, 'Hey...don't be scared, but, girl, you're 'bout to get pregnant."

More on post Christmas fun coming soon. 

Maybe now that I have a new camera, and theoretically better photos, I'll blog more. 

Hopefully so!  These guys are hilarious, and we have some stories to share.

On Any Given Sunday Afternoon....

You can find my men doing this...

With Jim Nantz speaking them to NFL sleep.

But the Middle Man would rather not rest (ever).

He "helped" me take some pictures of some paintings in the yard. 

It became apparent to me very quickly:

 that he was cuter than the artwork:)

And funnier than the artwork...

And weirder than the artwork...

And sillier than the artwork...

And that these Sunday afternoons shenanigans really were not interruptions..

But maybe...

what Sunday afternoons are all about.